JUMADA ALAWWAL 4, 1441 AH MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019 28 Pages Max 23º Min 08º 150 Fils Established 1961 ISSUE NO: 18023 The First Daily in the Arabian Gulf www.kuwaittimes.net Noticeable change in Jleeb Turkey will not withdraw Trump, Syria and Facebook: Liverpool lean on VAR to edge 5 after municipal crackdown 6 from army posts in Idlib 20 Volatile cocktail of the 2010s 28 Wolves; Chelsea sink Arsenal Kuwait says it respects Iran’s integrity after Ahvaz meeting Deputy FM reassures Iranian envoy, says meeting was held without approval By B Izzak Damkhi files KUWAIT: Kuwait said yesterday that it respects Iran’s “territorial integrity”, a day after Tehran summoned its envoy to protest to grill Aseeri against Kuwaiti officials meeting Iranian sepa- By B Izzak ratists. In a meeting with Iran’s ambassador Mohammad Irani, Kuwait’s deputy foreign KUWAIT: Islamist opposition MP minister Khaled Al-Jarallah stressed that his Adel Al-Damkhi yesterday filed to grill country’s foreign policy was based on respect- Minister of Social Affairs and Labor ing “sovereignty and non-interference in inter- Ghadeer Aseeri barely a week after nal affairs and good neighborliness”, KUNA she took office, over allegations that said. KUNA said Jarallah had reassured Iran’s ambassador that Kuwait respects the “Islamic she challenged the integrity of MPs. In Adel Al-Damkhi his brief grilling, Damkhi charged the Republic of Iran’s territorial integrity”. Iran’s foreign ministry had said on minister of violating the principles of for two more weeks. The minister Saturday that it summoned Kuwait’s envoy to cooperation between the National became a target of criticism by several Tehran to protest against its officials meeting Assembly and the government by issu- opposition MPs for tweets she posted a separatist group and holding an “anti-Iran ing statements deemed offensive to on her account some eight years ago meeting”. “Such actions are a clear interfer- lawmakers. in which she declared her total sup- ence in the internal affairs” of Iran, the for- Acting Assembly Speaker Essa Al- port for anti-government protests in eign ministry told a Kuwaiti envoy, according Kandari said the grilling will be listed neighboring Bahrain and for criticizing to a statement. The Iranian statement did not on the Jan 7 session’s agenda for a the dispatching of Gulf troops to specify which separatist group the Kuwaiti possible debate unless the minister Bahrain to support the government. officials stood accused of having met. KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Al-Jarallah meets Iranian Ambassador to invokes her right to delay the debate Continued on Page 24 Continued on Page 24 Kuwait Mohammad Irani yesterday. — KUNA During the past two years, Kuwait Maid dies after Kuwait ends managed to bear the great burden of being the sole Arab member of the coun- cil, and succeeded in following up and brutal assault successful coordinating with Arab countries and By Hanan Al-Saadoun trying to reflect their positions and con- UNSC tenure cerns in the decisions or statements dis- KUWAIT: Capital police were alerted yesterday after cussed by the council. “Unfortunately, receiving a report from Sabah Hospital concerning the NEW YORK: Kuwait has concluded its Arab issues are many in the Security arrival of a deceased Filipina housemaid with bruises on non-permanent membership of the UN Council, and some of them have gone on various parts of her body. Initial examination of the body Security Council with great success, for many years, such as the Palestinian suggested the possibility of a homicide, so the public prose- defending during its tenure a multitude cause. There are other issues listed since cutor was notified and the body was reexamined by the of Arab-related causes connected with the seventies and since 2011... the situa- coroner, who confirmed earlier suspicions. Palestine, Syria and Yemen. Moreover, tion has been very difficult and accord- The maid’s sponsor, who had taken her to hospital, Kuwait helped in formulating a resolu- ing to the statistics of the council, the admitted during interrogations that his wife had beaten the tion - the first of its kind - on missing Arab causes in which the council is maid until she fainted, adding he was shocked when he persons in armed conflicts. The GCC occupied constitute almost 50 percent realized at the hospital that she had died. The sponsor was state also had a hand in UNSC deci- of its overall work,” Kuwait’s Permanent detained and his wife was summoned. She admitted to sions on the humanitarian situation Representative to the UN headquarters beating the maid but said she had not intended to kill her. within context of the Syrian crisis and in New York Ambassador Mansour Al- UNITED NATIONS: Kuwait’s Permanent Representative to the UN headquarters in Detectives and forensic experts rushed to the sponsor’s also contributed to a presidential state- Otaibi told KUNA. New York Ambassador Mansour Al-Otaibi casts a vote during a session on Syria’s house in Sulaibikhat to examine the crime scene, where ment on Yemen. Continued on Page 24 humanitarian situation. — KUNA they found traces of blood that had been cleaned and evi- dence that the maid had been brutally beaten. A case was filed and further investigations are still in progress. lashing out at passersby and even Lathi: Indian minors, has only fuelled public anger. One video of a group of Muslim women in New Delhi protecting a cowering News in brief cops’ colonial male fellow student from a police lathi barrage spread like wildfire on social Death sentence for Yemeni stabber weapon media in India. Those who have experienced a blow RIYADH: A Saudi court sentenced a Yemeni man to NEW DELHI: As Indian protests from a lathi, measuring five or six feet death yesterday for a knife attack on a Spanish the- against a new citizenship law have inten- (1.5-1.8 m) and made of stout bamboo or atre group, state television said. The court also sen- sified, so has police use of “lathis”, stur- plastic, say it leaves a numbing sensation tenced an accomplice to 12 and a half years in jail dy sticks used to whack, thwack and that lasts for days. Multiple strikes can for the Nov 11 attack, which state media linked to quell dissent since British colonial times break bones, cripple and even kill. “From militant group Al-Qaeda, and which Madrid said left - to sometimes deadly effect. At least 27 being used as means to regulate crowds, four performers wounded. The assailant, identified people have died in the past two weeks by Saudi police as a 33-year-old Yemeni, went on a lathi has turned into a lethal weapon,” stabbing spree during a musical in the capital’s King of protests, mostly from bullets, but hun- said V Suresh, the secretary general of Abdullah Park. — AFP dreds more have been injured in clashes the People’s Union for Civil Liberties between demonstrators and riot police (PUCL), a non-profit rights group. “It is... wielding the bamboo canes. being freely used, so much so that as a Slain men were driving car bomb Images shot by AFP and other media country we have become inured to it. GALORE, India: In this picture taken on Dec 19, 2019, policemen with “lathis” beat a of officers hitting people with them, in Lathi is seen as a normal but it is protester during a demonstration against India’s new citizenship law. — AFP DUBAI: Two Saudi men shot dead last week in the some cases apparently indiscriminately Continued on Page 24 eastern city of Dammam were driving a car loaded with explosives and were planning an “imminent ter- rorist operation”, the SPA state news agency said have an impact on production and exports”, adding that people wounded. The activists scored a partial success yesterday, citing security forces. The two started Iraq protesters the national oil company’s branch in the southern port in November with the resignation of prime minister shooting at security forces when they were of Basra will “compensate for the losses”. Iraq exports Adel Abdel Mahdi, who however remains in charge in a approached on Wednesday and were shot dead. around 3.6 million barrels of oil per day. The youth-led caretaker role. Pro-Iranian and other political factions Five kg of paste was taken from the car and found lock down oil protests demand the ouster of the entire political class have since wrangled over finding a replacement - so far later to contain the explosive RDX. — Reuters that has run the country in the aftermath of the 2003 without success. field, call strike US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. And although parliament has just voted for an elec- Demonstrators have vented their fury at what they toral reform package, there has been no indication that Arrests over ‘indecency’, harassment NASIRIYAH, Iraq: Iraqi anti-government protesters consider inept politicians who have mismanaged the the early polls many citizens are calling for will be held blockaded an oilfield and rallied in southern cities yes- economy, enriched themselves and are beholden to anytime soon. Heightening the turmoil, President RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has arrested more than 200 terday while political factions remained paralyzed in powerful neighbor Iran. Sit-in protests have shut down Barham Saleh last week threatened to resign rather people for violating “public decency” - including by their attempts to form a new government. Several hun- state offices and schools across the Shiite-majority than put forward the name of a pro-Iran candidate to wearing immodest clothing - and “harassment”, dred people demanding jobs shut off access to the south for weeks, and demonstrators again declared a form the next government.